The Forgotten Falangist: Ernesto Gimenez Caballero

Abstract

In October 1973, the Falange, Spain's only legal political party, celebrated the fortieth anniversary of its founding. Time and decades of unchallenged political power have swept away much of the movement's original leadership and purpose. As the anniversary date approached, however, there still remained a few camisas viejas (founding members of the Party) to recall the old days with fondness, remembering the time when the Falange sought to lead Spain toward fascism. Undoubtedly, Ernesto Gimenez Caballero was among them. A figure now largely ignored or dismissed by foreign students of the Falange's initial years, Gimenez Caballero played a singular role in the movement's inception and in the enunciation of a fascist programme for Spain's future. A tall, lean man, now in his seventies, Gimenez Caballero was once regarded as 'the Spanish D'Annunzio',1 the intellectual progenitor of the movimiento nacional. History, especially that published in the English language, has not been particularly mindful of his career. Those recent sources which have discussed him at all have described his works as 'weird outpourings' or 'such a farrago of nonsense that they can scarcely be taken seriously'.2 Spanish publications, however, continue to assign him a primary role in the history of the Falange, referring to Gimenez Caballero as 'the first of the Spanish fascists' or ranking him along with Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera and Ledesma Ramos as the only 'brilliant men' the movement ever attracted.3 There is ample evidence to justify the position taken by these Spanish-language sources. The founder of the Falange, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, was an avid reader of Gimenez Caballero's fascist views long before he embarked upon a political career. Because of Gimenez Caballero's primacy as a champion of Spanish fascism, he was